Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Apps are it. If you ask any of the futurists. Everything points to the smart phone and its' ability to make life easier or more entertaining.

Here are some tips to building a successful brand app strategy. (Courtesy of Kunur Patel)

More than a year into the age of the iPhone app, brands are starting to get on board -- and best practices are emerging. At Wednesday's Apps for Brands event in New York, marketers taught other marketers what's worked for them. Here are 12 lessons culled from the day, during which MLB.com CEO Bob Bowman and marketers from Kraft, Bank of America, Benjamin Moore and AKQA convened to talk about what they've learned from their early, successful forays into the space.

Apps must be real-timePeople's expectations of apps, especially paid ones, are high. When it comes to streaming video or stats, don't provide content on mobile that's inferior to what the web or TV offers. It must update in real time. "The notion of the one-minute delay is unacceptable," said Bob Bowman, president-CEO, MLB.com. "If you don't have real-time content, you're dead."

Make it easy for consumers to payTake advantage of properties such as iTunes and mobile providers such as Verizon that have the infrastructure and back-end know-how to take payments from app users. When it comes to MLB.com's paid app, the vast majority of purchases come through tried-and-true mobile-commerce providers instead of directly through MLB.com. "Partner with people who know how to collect money," said Mr. Bowman. And when it comes to figuring out how much to charge, it's easier to drop the price than to increase it, or move from free to paid. "If it doesn't work, take it down, rework it, try it again," he said.

Integrate feedback quicklyPeople will point out flaws in your app on the web. That feedback is an asset. Adjust your app as quickly as possible and send through an update. "All feedback is important, but on our app it's especially valuable," said Mr. Bowman. "When we went from offering two free [live-streamed] games to one, we heard about it immediately. We went back to two games the next day."

'This is not the wired web'Mr. Bowman urges that marketers and publishers to not make the same mistakes in mobile that have been made on the internet -- and that means forcing ads into every spot they can. On mobile, click-through isn't the only metric that matters. Are people recommending your app? Or trashing it on Twitter? "We measure click-throughs, but we don't measure pissed off," said Mr. Bowman, referring to when MLB put an intrusive ad into its At Bat app.

People will pay for value...Zagat's iPhone app is the 77th top-grossing app in the Apps Store, out of 58,000. MLB charges $9.99 to download the At Bat app, 99 cents to watch streaming video of games; it has 400,000 users. And Kraft charged 99 cents for its iFood app, promoting the notion that what it's offering was something of value. Additionally, pointed out Ed Kaczmarek, Kraft's director of innovation and new services, making an app paid allows you to offer future in-app commerce and subscription opportunities that just aren't available in a free app.

...But free works to drives sales for your endemic productBenjamin Moore's Ben Color Capture app was built to build brand awareness for its subbrand Ben, as well as to drive traffic to stores. "We haven't accomplished anything until we sell paint," said Carl Minchew, director of product development, Benjamin Moore. The app lets users snap a photo of something in the world and than matches colors in the photo to paint shades in the brand's library. If that inspires a paint purchase, the app uses GPS to direct users to the nearest retailer.

Apps need to be part of an integrated messageAKQA, a digital agency that has created apps for clients such as Gap, Nike and Smirnoff, sells apps as part of marketing ideas and integrated campaigns, instead of as one-off projects, said Rei Inamoto, the agency's chief creative officer. The app then becomes integrated with the agency's thinking or larger programs, instead of something a freelancer or developer could do cheaper.